This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. It was found back in the early 70s in Drosophila melanogaster in France. It is a relatively non-pathogenic virus. It was found to be distributed widely in both wild and laboratory populations. Not too much has been done with it since. We decided to grow it up and look at it as a virus that may complement studies we do with Drosophila C virus. It grows in both Drosophila and in the schneiders DL2 cell line. We have 90% of the genome (about 5 kb as estimated from Northerns) sequenced, including the entire capsid open reading frame. The RdRP has sequence similarity the the tetravirus TaV, with a permuted RdRP motif domain, which suggests a T=4 structure. The capsid protein sequence however, has no similarity to anything on the data bases. The size of the capsid protein also is very small (48 kDa for the complete ORF) compared to the tetraviruses, which may mean that this is a T=3 virus with a tetravirus replicase.